He does remind me of Durant in terms of his reach and ability to shoot three's. Very-durantesque shooting form. The minute Masai said he wanted a big 3 and someone with shot-blocking potential... I though Capella. No one thought this guy

He does remind me of Durant in terms of his reach and ability to shoot three's. Very-durantesque shooting form. The minute Masai said he wanted a big 3 and someone with shot-blocking potential... I though Capella. No one thought this guy

He should be a insane shot blocker for a SF 6'9 7'7Wingspan!!!!!!!!!!! and he's coming over next season!

Im excited for this guy!

Masai knows you need stars to win in this league and he swung for the fences

Clearly Masai feels strongly about this kid and he does have a solid track record in the draft. The biggest thing from this is knowing we have a GM whose not running the team to keep his job. I'm pretty sure most GM's in Masai's position wouldn't have the balls to make that pick. Good on Masai on making sure he got his guy even if he probably reached a little.

Exactly. Picks around the 20s and after are usually run-of-the-mill, rotation guys who'd be lucky to play 7-8 seasons in the NBA. Instead of going for the same old, American college player... this pick was thinking outside the box and taking a gamble on a pick that could be a homerun. Plus Masai is still actively involved in Basketball Without Borders and he's noticed many talents in the past like Greivis and Gorgui Dieng through the BWB program. So i'm sure he's knows this kid better than anyone through the BWB program and strongly feels about him. Question I have is did the kid not do any workouts at all or did one for the Raptors before he was guaranteed by them that they'd draft him.

Exactly. Picks around the 20s and after are usually run-of-the-mill, rotation guys who'd be lucky to play 7-8 seasons in the NBA. Instead of going for the same old, American college player... this pick was thinking outside the box and taking a gamble on a pick that could be a homerun. Plus Masai is still actively involved in Basketball Without Borders and he's noticed many talents in the past like Greivis and Gorgui Dieng through the BWB program. So i'm sure he's knows this kid better than anyone through the BWB program and strongly feels about him. Question I have is did the kid not do any workouts at all or did one for the Raptors before he was guaranteed by them that they'd draft him.

Doesn't that remind you of Reggie Jackson few years back?

Guess the Raptors were really high on him and don't see much potential in the other guys in the draft... Their plan was to draft Ennis at 20 and make the Prince trade to grab Caboclo at 22... At the same time the Raptors didn't do the Nappier trade with the HEAT meaning that they probably felt that he would be gone by 26. This could a controversial pick, but I have no problem with Masai taking someone who has potential to be a top 10 player in this year's draft rather than to play safe with it.

I can't seem to find much info on him. If people thought Dante Exum was mysterious... this dude is even more fictional than chupacabra. I expect him to be in summer league, what happens after that? D-League?

1) Why does this team , with few young talents and couple of good pieces, need to swing for the fans at this stage of team development?

2) Why couldn't they move down and collect more asset while minimizing their risk for this " Swing for the fence" approach?

I guess summer league will answer some of these questions

My assumption is that Masai doesn't wanna go with anyone that's "safe" and that will contribute just so that the team can keep competitive because the Raptors' is a 2nd round playoff team at best. Masai probably wants to collect young players with high ceilings that the Raptors can develop and the team will have a real shot at competing for championship in 4-5 years of time. If the Raptors keep showing to be better than they are, then it's great, but I think this is the direction that Masai is going and last season's result was not expected. I see more changes on the team in the next few weeks